Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — It’s been about 10,000 years since a mammoth last roamed Utah land. So with that perspective, the naming process for Utah’s NHL team hasn’t been too long at all.
After a 13-month process, featuring multiple rounds of fan voting and trademark issues (not to mention an entire season), Utah’s NHL team has a permanent name.
What was the Utah Hockey Club is now officially the Utah Mammoth.
The team said a total of 850,000 votes were cast over the course of a year to eventually land on the new moniker.
"The community chose the Utah Mammoth brand, and it stands as a symbol of who we are, where we came from, and the unstoppable force we’re building together," team owners Ryan and Ashley Smith said in a statement.
The announcement ends what has been a long process to find a name for the NHL’s newest franchise.
It started in April 2024 when Smith Entertainment Group put out a public request asking for potential team names. A month later, the organization released its first ballot, allowing fans to choose four names of a list of 20.
That list was cut to six names — Yeti, Blizzard, Hockey Club, Venom, Outlaws and Mammoth — for another round of voting last summer.
And then the trademark hurdles came.
The team hit a snag with presumed favored Utah Yeti when Yeti Coolers refused to enter into a coexistence agreement with the team. The team had plenty of conversations with the cooler company, and the NHL (a Yeti partner) even tried to help tip the scales, but Yeti ultimately wanted to protect its own trademarks.
So the team moved on from the name that had topped many lists, and the final vote was between Mammoth, Hockey Club and Outlaws (only after a brief flirtation with "Wasatch" as a potential Yeti replacement).
Mammoth was the "clear favorite" in that final tally, according to the team, which was something that was seen from fans on social media and within the arena. But that’s only one reason Wednesday’s announcement wasn’t a big surprise.
Last week, the team essentially leaked the name by updating its YouTube handle to "UtahMammoth" — a pretty clear sign of what was coming.
The team even took the positive reaction to the hiccup as further validation that it had made the right choice for the name.
The Mammoth moniker comes with plenty of Utah ties, too. Mammoth fossils have been found throughout Utah, including in Bear Lake, Fillmore, Orem, Park City, and Lake Powell. A complete mammoth skeleton was even discovered in Hunting Canyon in 1988.
As for the rest of the branding, the team will retain its inaugural season colors — blue, black, and white — but introduce updated designs.
The primary logo features a mammoth profile with a mountain peak forming the crown of its head. The silhouette of Utah is embedded within the mountain, with an "M" inside the state outline. Secondary logos include a tusk piercing a "U" and a new "Mammoth Sans font."
Jersey designs will resemble last season’s sweaters, maintaining similar stripe patterns but showcasing the new marks. The home jersey will be black with the primary logo on the chest. The away jersey will feature the diagonal "Utah" wordmark in the updated font.
The away jersey can be seen as a call-back to the Utah Hockey Club season — and it likely won’t be the last. The organization emphasized the Utah HC name will always remain part of its history, with future opportunities to pay tribute to the team’s inaugural identity.
For now, though, the focus is on launching the new Utah Mammoth brand.
While fans had to wait for the official name, they won’t have to wait for merchandise.
Hats, shirts, hoodies, and more — everything except jerseys — will go on sale at the team store in the Delta Center at noon on Wednesday. Jerseys will be released, along with the rest of the NHL’s uniforms, ahead of next season.
